Campbell’s new basketball coach doing double duty during Florida’s NCAA Tournament run
Before Florida won two games in Raleigh to advance to the Sweet 16, after the Gators arrived in town, John Andrzejek borrowed the team rental car and drove 45 minutes to check in on his other basketball team. It was just a happy accident that the Gators had been sent this close to Campbell.
The Florida assistant took the Campbell job last week but, is sticking with the Gators through their run, unlike Duke assistant coach Jai Lucas, who left the Blue Devils when he got the Miami job. That means Andrzejek is not only coordinating the defense for a still-alive No. 1 seed that plays Maryland in San Francisco on Thursday, but assembling a staff, re-recruiting the old roster and trying to build a new one.
And he’s only 32.
It’s a lot.
“I feel like I’m working two full-time jobs at the same time,” Andrzejek said after Florida’s win over Connecticut at Lenovo Center on Sunday.
Campbell also felt like home. Andrzejek is from Hamilton, N.Y., home of Colgate University, the ninth-smallest college town in Division I. Buies Creek is sixth. It’s not exactly the middle of nowhere — less than an hour from RDU if traffic cooperates — but it’s always been a different kind of job.
“I think the tradition is a huge part of it, the community,” Andrzejek said. “I really feel like ‘Field of Dreams:’ If you build it, they’ll come. I know they’re hungry for a winner. They’re ready to rally behind the team. We’ve just got to get it started. We’ve got to get a little momentum, win some games, and I know it’ll be rowdy. It’ll be crazy there.”
There’s a lot of pride in the basketball program, in the growth of the campus, in the facilities. Gore Arena isn’t huge, but it’s as nicely appointed and accommodating a building as there is at that level. It’s not the biggest school, a distinction drawn even more sharply by the move from the Big South to the CAA, but it has wealthy donors, a giant camel statue and a history of punching above its weight.
Basketball in particular has been able to attract unicorn-type players like Eric Griffin and Chris Clemons — undersized dunk-machines who were good enough to get NBA looks — but hasn’t made the NCAA tournament since 1992 and hasn’t been able to match the ambition of the rest of the campus, which has added football, several academic programs and a lot of brick and mortar over the past decade while making the major jump upward in conferences.
Kevin McGeehan, a former Richmond assistant, lasted 12 years with the Camels, winning the Big South regular-season title once, going .500 in two years in the CAA. It isn’t easy. But there’s an opportunity there for the right coach to capitalize on the resources and support and ambition and build a sort-of Davidson in Harnett County, where basketball is as much a part of the school’s identity as anything else.
It might take a different kind of approach, but there’s no doubt Andrzejek will bring one.
Andrzejek comes from one of college basketball’s most interesting and innovative coaching trees. He started out as a student manager under Kyle Smith at Columbia, where he graduated in only five semesters. (Andrzejek also freelanced as the personal basketball trainer for future Virginia star Ty Jerone.) Smith has since gone from Columbia to San Francisco to Washington State to Stanford; his proteges include Florida coach Todd Golden, Andrzejek and another Florida assistant, Kevin Hovde, who just landed back at Columbia.
“John’s an incredible young coach,” Golden said. “He’s done a great job this year. I’ve given him a lot more responsibility on the defensive side of the ball, and he’s coordinated it very well. Obviously our players deserve most of the credit for the jump we’ve made, but I think his organization and his leadership on that side have held us more accountable that way.”
All of them — Smith, Golden, Hovde, Andrzejek and others — share common threads not only in coaching philosophies and styles, but an early embrace of the use of college basketball analytics that are now considered fairly routine. Golden has already said he will promote Florida data analyst Jonathan Safir to fill Andrzejek’s spot on the coaching staff.
It’s not a novelty with these guys; it’s how they do business.
“I’m blessed to say I’ve worn every hat there is to wear in college basketball,” Andrzejek said. “I’ve wiped up the sweat. I’ve been an offensive coordinator, been a defensive coordinator, done the analytics, done the recruiting. So I feel really ready. And that’s the beauty of coaching in this family, they really prepare you for this opportunity by letting you get involved with a lot of different stuff. And part of that is the analytics.”
Andrzejek, in turn, has already filled one spot on his bench at Campbell with Landry Kosmalski, a former Davidson player and assistant coach who went to two Division III Final Fours as the head coach at Swarthmore College. It’s a slightly out-of-the-box hire that makes a lot of sense, with Kosmalski’s regional ties and head-coaching experience, but that’s also probably what it will take to win at Campbell.
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This story was originally published March 27, 2025 at 6:00 AM.
